Absence of Method
by Little Miss Marina
Summary: As a young officer in SOLDIER, Cloud is given a mission he can neither refuse, nor be sure to return from. Based on “Apocalypse Now”/Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness.” AU. CxS. CxR. CxT. Yaoi and het. Heavy violence.
1. the rear

A/N: Thought it might be time to change this authors' note.

I was on a twenty-four hour work day when the idea for this popped up. In my dazed state, I watched _Apocalypse Now_ and, most likely because I'm going through my fourth FFVII obsession in the eleven years since it was created, I noticed enough parallels between the plot/characters of the movie and the game to start this epic.

For those of you who don't know, _Heart of Darkness_ by Joseph Conrad is a novella set in the eighteen-hundreds about a man's journey into the jungles of the Congo--a metaphor to the venture into the dark recesses of the human mind--to search for someone who worked for his expedition, and is rumored to have gone murderously insane. The deeper he goes into the jungle, the more he himself begins to lose his grip on reality, morality, and sanity. _Apocalypse Now, _based on that book is, quite accurately, the exact same plot set in the Vietnam War, with the US Army replacing an expedition. ...sounds pretty damn similar to Cloud's search for Sephiroth, in my opinion.

Do you have to have read _Heart of Darkness_ or seen _Apocalypse Now_ to understand this? No, but I recommend the two, anyway! (I like A.Now better than the book, to be honest--it actually has humor.) To warn: in the future, this will contain explicit **yaoi and het** alike. Like the movie, this story is riddled with **graphic violence and disturbing themes**; I recommend that you have a strong constitution to continue. Have fun with this; I certainly am.

--

**one (prologue) : the rear.**

I remember Nibelheim like I remember being born.

That isn't to say that there's no memory whatsoever; I _do _remember what it was like being pushed through the birth canal. But the first breath I took in life isn't much different from the last breath I took in Nibelheim, where the cold stings your lungs and the mako condenses in your chest. When I joined Shinra's Army, I'd told everyone that it was because I wanted to see the world, kick down doors and bring glory to myself and my little town, but it was also just to get away from the air.

So far only two of those things have been accomplished: I wouldn't consider myself a well-traveled person, even now as I linger in my humid apartment on an island off the coast of the Western Island, where the rear line has been set up. Kicking down doors gets weary on the knees, especially when you've done it as much as I have. And, I still haven't brought glory to Nibelheim for there are hundreds like me in Shinra.

No, to do that, you have to be Sephiroth.

I'm nowhere near there at the moment, and I don't see myself ever getting there if I stay here, naked in this apartment. The condensation is made of my own sweat, I'm sure, recycled thousands of times, as I haven't opened a window or stepped outside in days, horrified of what might happen if I do. For now I finger the blinds and peer outside at the Wutainese who have gathered here to work on our base, considered traitors in their native lands for accepting our doctrine. They've set up noodle stands and teahouses on the island to entertain their new "guests."

The few times I'd visited the teahouses, they'd all told me that they prayed for our victory. I know I should see this as a good thing, that some of the natives are on our side, but something about it left an even worse taste in my mouth than the cheap sake they poured me did: I don't like traitors, even if they _are_ on my side.

As far as I know, there is no side. As far as I know, this is a job.

As far as I know, there's over there, and over _here_.

--

In the wilderness of the Island, I'd prayed for R&R relentlessly. I sent letters home to my girls, Tifa and Aeris, asking them both to fly out to see me, playing a game with myself based on who would respond first . Whoever was too slow, I would send a quick letter back saying that my leave had been canceled. Of course it's wrong; I know it is, and I know that the Cloud they love would never do such a thing. But the Cloud they love can't make decisions either, and this is a different spectre.

I'm on R&R now in the rear, and upon arriving here two weeks ago, I found myself sending them _both_ letters saying that my leave had been canceled, for as soon as I had been shown to my apartment, I wanted to walk right back out and into combat. _This is crazy,_ I thought to myself, as I stood in my darkened room for nearly an hour, refusing to unpack or make myself comfortable. _Who the fuck _wants_ to go back in the shit?_

I do. When I see my girls, I realized, I don't want to come back to this. It's hard to go from being caressed by the whip of a near-fatal gun wound, to the caress of a woman's hand, and then back again. But R&R is R&R, and that's exactly what it's for—except with me.

For even though I'm several miles away from the Island, I'm still there—my room is humid and muggy just the same and the sound of Shinra helicopters and machinery whirs about me. The natives that speak outside remind me of the refugees that we damn near blow to hell and barely help patch up. Everything red reminds me of blood, and Shinra's official color is red—matching symbolism on the president's part. It's everywhere. I can still hear artillery from the Island and it's all I can do not to twitch each time a mortar round goes off.

When these things creep into my head at night, my skin crawls and itches. I reach for my sword and find an excuse to slice things in half because there are no people or trees. I destroy anything I can hide behind and beg them—the enemy, Shinra, the girls, _anyone_—to come and get me.

First come, first serve.

--

Do I like reviews? YES, I can't get enough of them. 3 Thanks for reading.


	2. along the edge of a straight razor

d0rkgoddess: Hehe, it's been a while since I read "Heart of Darkness," too... I remember not liking it, but finding out that Apocalypse Now is literally the book translated into the Vietnam War era made me regain interest in it. Anyway, thanks!

****

Two : the snail, crawling along the edge of a straight razor.

When I hear the knock on my door, it tears me away from the world a few nautical miles across from us and I hang my head over the side of my bed and retch a couple of times, hoping to actually puke or at least sound sick so that the maids would go away.

But the knocking persists, a few smothered male-sounding laughs sneaking in between them. I lift my neck up and strain to make my vocal chords work.

"Who the fuck?" I blather.

"Captain Cloud Strife?" The older voice comes, and before I can tell them to piss off, two sergeants—one older than me, one perhaps my age—throw open the door and barge in without saluting. I'm sure my room probably stinks, but they don't pay it or my grotesquely sweaty, nude body any mind as the older one flips out a paper, clears his throat and tries to read it to me.

"Sir, you have orders from headquarters," he starts, but is interrupted as I roll onto my back and moan loudly, throwing my forearm over my face. Goddamn, the light hurts. I regret pretending to puke—now it feels like I'm really going to. Or maybe I'm still trying to disgust them into going away.

"From General Heidegger himself, sir," the younger one pipes up. "You have to report to him in the Green Zone on the Island by sixteen-hundred hours."

I'd never been ordered to do anything directly from Heidegger, so the mentioning of his name should set alarm bells ringing in my head. But my stomach is killing me, and I keep feeling this burning sensation in my chest. I don't even know why I'm sick.

"Green zone," I mutter into my forearm, shifting away from the open windows. "That's intel. What the fuck does he want with me there?"

"That's classified, sir. We don't even know."

Sure, I want a mission, but not from Heidegger. I don't have to have been directly under his command to know that he's a total prick. I yawn and pull the pillow over my head, ignoring the two soldiers.

Under the pillow I hear their exasperated sighs and am satisfied that I've put them in an awkward position. Sergeants usually wouldn't put their hands on an officer, but then I remember that this is a war, too, and that anything goes.

"Sir," the older one says, "You need to get up."

"I know," I drone, muffled under my pillow. A couple more minutes pass before they say anything again.

"Sir. It's fourteen-thirty."

"I knoooooow," I say again.

"You need to be there in an hour and a half."

"I know, I know, I know."

The next exchange occurs when they both grab each of my arms and haul me up off the bed. Surprised, and thinking I'm being taken prisoner, I scream and try to wrench free of them as they drag me into the bathroom and deposit me into the tub, turning on the cold water. From staying in the heat of my sweat for two weeks, I jump back at frigidness and sit in the tub, like a child not wanting to bathe, yelling at them.

"You shits!"

Laughing, the older one says, "I'm sorry, sir, but we have orders to get you there on time. We'll have you cleaned up in no time."

How could I stay mad at them? They're not bad fellas. As I shave and try to get my hair in order, they both go around my room, cleaning it up as best they can, slipping on stray materia rolling on the floor, packing up my gear neatly and shoving it into my bag. My next destination is the helicopter we're going on, for I'm sure that I can sleep well enough on board.

But the second I set foot onto the mechanical beast, my body tingles, and I'm ready for the Island again. I seem to fit into my uniform just fine even though my two weeks in the apartment had left me with the idea that they would hang off of my body like skin and bones. I feel a calmness wash over me and think, "what the hell, it's not so bad." For fourteen days, I'd prayed for a mission to keep me sane, but at the same time hoped one would never come, for the indecisive Cloud in me had re-emerged and convinced me that going crazy in a damp room and possibly either eating or starving myself to death was better than killing people and watching those around me die.

The helicopter ride lasts about an hour, and I don't sleep at all. I examine the pattern of the waves beneath us, flipping my sword around in my lap and fingering the pistol in my belt. I don't think about the mission at all—it's classified, but I won't let that fool me. As a new officer, I'd been fooled before by HQ after being told that my "top secret important mission" would change the tide of the war. I had thought I'd be leading a charge to some well-fortified enemy encampment, but I knew very little about how the military worked back then, and was disappointed when I was thrown behind a set of dark cubicles in the rear, overseeing intel as they transmitted and intercepted messages from the enemy. I'm trained as in infantry officer, so I had no idea what the hell was going on. _Watch_, I think to myself. _This is probably gonna be the same shit._

If so, I decided I'd politely demand that Heidegger send me back in the shit with the soldiers, or I'd kill myself. Of course, this is illogical since all that wins you is an agonizingly long trip to the infirmary and then maybe a ticket home, which I'm not ready for.

The helicopter lands and as soon as my foot hits the ground, I can feel the professionalism edge back into me. Several privates walk past me and salute nervously; I return it as the sergeants lead me to the little mobile trailer with Heidegger's standard flying over it, the Shinra logo on its own flag proudly waving underneath it.

Inside, I see General Heidegger, and notice something off about him. He isn't the only person in the room; the president's son, who he had sent into the army as an intel analyst, is also here, sitting in a darker corner on a stool. Seeing him pisses me off: he's two years older than me, yet one rank away from general; that's three ranks up my measly captain, which I'd actually achieved quicker than most. Plus, by the way he examines his fingernails, I'm positive he's never seen combat. Then I think again, of course not. Fucking intel.

I salute the fat General, who seems preoccupied with the sequins on his plump little chair in front of the television. "Captain Cloud Strife, SOLDIER First Class, 51st Airborne Division, reporting as ordered, sir."

Heidegger, looking more ill at ease than I'd ever seen him, salutes me back and waves me off when I try to stand at attention.

"Just relax, Cloud." I sniff at this. It's common in this day and age for everyone to call each other by first names, even in the army, but I don't like it. Especially not with him.

"You've, uh, met the colonel?" He says, gesturing towards the president's son, who ignores me.

"Sir," I say, unsure of how to acknowledge the little prick. He just nods slowly at my voice, not even looking up.

I look down at Heidegger again and see that he's sweating, but I can tell the difference between nervous sweat and sweat from the heat. It's both of course, but he's not his usual talkative, laughing self. The air seems stiff in the place and I clear my throat and shift my feet.

With that, Rufus, the colonel, pulls himself up onto his feet and moves toward me.

"Let's not waste anymore time, shall we?" He says, a haughty smile on his mouth. "I'm sure the suspense is killing you."

_You are _so _fucking ugly in uniform,_ I think as he gestures to a chair at the dining table, where lunch is set up, and a young native girl pours us all cups of chilled coconut tea, and excuses herself from the trailer.

I haven't had much of an appetite for the past several days, but I don't want to seem rude or odd in front of two assholes-but-higher-ups. Plus, I'm sure that I _need_ to eat, so I help myself to mostly meat and potatoes as I wait for whatever dreaded conversation we're about to have get started.

Then, without any kind of warning, Rufus says in his slick voice:

"Captain, have you ever met General Sephiroth?"

I nearly drop my fork as the last syllable of the name spills out of his mouth like poorly contained food. I _don't_ drop my fork, but I also don't do such a good job hiding my surprise. I had been in the middle of swallowing when he asked, so my Adam's apple popped up and down as if I'm choking.

"General Sephiroth?" I echo, playing dumb.

With that, Heidegger passes me a brown dossier. As I open it, a service picture falls out, that of the above said Sephiroth in his SOLDIER uniform, unsmiling. His gaze seemed intent on breaking either the camera, or the person behind it—for a minute, I felt his wrath on me, the onlooker.

Looking back up, my eyes shift between Rufus and Heidegger, then back down to the dossier.

"Yes," I say, flipping through the photos of promotions, awards ceremonies, graduations from military schools. "He was my CO years ago, at my first duty station in Junon."

"This might seem inappropriate," Rufus begins and my hands fall into the dossier as if to sigh, and I challenge Rufus with my eyes. _Don't you dare ask it,_ I communicate to him, but this seems to egg him on.

"But were you ever involved with the General?" Rufus seems to be amused by his own question. This time I _do _sigh, very slightly; when put that way, it isn't too hard to deflect his question.

I raise an eyebrow. "'Involved,' sir?"

"Involved, as in, sexually."

I glance over at Heidegger, who eats sloppily, a napkin tucked into the top of his uniform. He freezes as the question is asked.

"Sir," I direct at Heidegger, suddenly pissed off. "What is this about?"

"Unfortunate as it may be for _you_," Heidegger says, nastily. "The colonel has every right to ask this question, as it affects the details of your mission."

"Uh," I say, intending to disrespect. "What exactly does this _mission_ entail? _Sir?_"

"I was getting there," Rufus says coolly, then grabs a remote and points it an electronic device, and continues eating. "Listen to this."

The sound player begins to rotate with a whir. The first thirty seconds of the file are nothing but interference, but the sound of machine gun fire blends into it as well. At one minute, the machine gun fire melds into dozens of people speaking in a foreign language, which to me doesn't even sound like what the Wutai natives speak.

I'd place my fork down again, after picking at the potatoes for a bit, concentrating on a space in the table as I listen.

At a minute and fifteen seconds, the interference and its accompanying noise cease, and the unmistakable drawl of Sephiroth emerges.

"…burning," he said. "….a billion empty shards… mirror… angels… talking."

My eyes had dropped down to the dossier in my lap, and from it, I pull another picture of Sephiroth, dated back to when he was my commanding officer.

"…my mother," he says. I'm confused. I don't know if it's the quality of the file causing him to sound like this or if this is really him. "My mother…."

"She says these things to me as I sleep. And… I guilt myself for not knowing what…she means."

For a moment, I'm lost. I shake my head. "No," I say quietly, "…this can't be Sephiroth."

I regret saying anything when I see interest flash in Rufus's eyes.

"So, I… I struggle… with myself… with the world… with those around…me."

I would have asked them to stop playing the damn tape, but I didn't want them getting any ideas about me. Though, I've heard enough.

"To find… the meaning."

Before the file ceases, there is a strange, violent sound—I could tell that Heidegger and Rufus Shinra were having a hard time deciphering it, but I had seen a disembowelment take place before, and I would never forget it the way it sounded, looked, and smelled. And, as Heidegger squints his eyes and Rufus crinkles his nose, I keep that to myself.

--

Fun. XD Anyway, a couple of notes:

It occurred to me that not everyone is familiar with military terms and whatnot. If you have any questions, just ask while reviewing, and I'll be glad to answer when I put the next chapter up!

As far as SOLDIER goes, I noticed that a lot of people write "SOLDIER 1st Class, SOLDIER 2nd Class" off as a rank system. This doesn't really compute with me, since not every soldier in Shinra's Army is in SOLDIER, and they all need a similar rank system to go off of. To me, and definitely for the purpose of this fic, SOLDIER is more of a "skill identifier—" those of you familiar with the military know what I'm talking about. A skill identifier is just an extra skill you pick up in training, but doesn't necessarily dictate what your job is. In example; in the army (that is, US Army), going to Ranger (advanced infantry) School, Sapper (advanced combat engineer) School, or Special Forces (Solid Snake shit) school grants you a skill identifier for that skill. You may be a… fucking air conditioner repairman and still go to Ranger/Sapper/SF school; it doesn't mean that you're going to kick down doors, blow up houses or slit peoples throats on your way to fixing the ceiling fan, but that you are qualified to and could, if your commander needed it to be done. Of course it'd be hard to get an air conditioner repairman to go to one of those schools and it'd be more sensible for an infantryman/combat engineer to go… but I digress. In pertaining to SOLDIER, "1st class" and "2nd class" are levels of skill in SOLDIER acquired.

So, to me, this is what SOLDIER is, although Cloud is an infantryman, so he effectively uses his skill as a SOLDIER every day in his job. :D Hope that clears something up.

Also, some chapters, like this one, are named after quotes or items from Apocalypse Now. Throwing that out there. Ka-POW.


	3. the boat

Flyery: Thank you for reviewing! But, why do I need to capitalize my chapters? They're not part of the story or syntax. I don't think it should matter.

**three : the boat.**

On every corner of the Planet, the name's been uttered. Sephiroth. One of the most influential people—if not soldiers—in the world. I joined around the time when his name had just become famous, and his career blossomed as mine inched along, not particularly different from anyone else's. And like everyone else, I fell into the ranks of those who worshipped him and dreamed of becoming his mirror image.

The voice on the recording, according to Heidegger and Shinra, was confirmed by intel to be Sephiroth. But to me, it just wasn't. Sephiroth, while a bit out of place, was the most sane person in the army—rational and patient, never raising his voice, even when angry. He cared about the soldiers underneath him and he wasn't stuck up. I had always thought he was more sane than Heidegger, honestly.

Right now, I'm waiting along the beach for my pick-up, smoking a cigarette as I finger the dossier.

"_I don't understand," _I said at the lunch table, left in a daze from listening to the recording. _"Where is the general, now?"_

Heidegger removed his napkin and viciously threw it onto his plate, breathing heavily, and left to get a drink of water. Rufus calmly explained.

"_Right now, Sephiroth is in the materia cave north of Wutai, staking out on that island with his men. As you know, it's a bit difficult to access, as there's a lack of beaches and the cliffs there are high."_

By then, my appetite was completely gone, thinking about what this mission could possibly be about.

"_Rumor has it that the natives living there surround Sephiroth and protect him as if he were a god. And, who would blame them: look at him." _

I did as he said and accepted a color picture of Sephiroth in front of a company of SOLDIERs, examining how he stood out with his silver hair and bright green eyes. Rufus was right: Sephiroth is sort of a god amongst men.

And I also think: were the rest of us so different from the natives who worship him? If I happened to be under his command, wouldn't I have remained a part of the cult that surrounds his glory?

When I tried to give the photo back to Heidegger, he only tossed it into my dossier. I knew there must have been more to this story, so I waited as Rufus lit a cigarette at the table and leaned onto his elbows.

"_General Sephiroth himself was in command of a SOLDIER battalion when he was dispatched. Of course, back in the yellow zone near the second bridge, we lost a lot of gained territory, and quite a few men. Several companies in Sephiroth's battalion fell prey to an ambush and many of them died. That was the last incident that HQ had officially contacted him at. After that, he and his remaining men disappeared."_

"_To the materia cave up north?" _I asked.

Rufus nodded._ "We're guessing so. For a short time after Sephiroth and his boys went AWOL, our advances became easier and we had little resistance. A few captured men could only blubber out short sentences concerning a silver-haired soldier… the Wutainese are terrified of him. Now, it seems that our enemies have multiplied in numbers. But these people are slightly different from the civilized Wutainese past the mountains."_

He handed me another set of monochromatic photos, all depicting murdered civilians in various grotesque positions.

"_It seems that these civilians were killed by Sephiroth, as well."_

Among the dead in the pictures were several children with missing heads. I _really_ wanted to give those back, but instead, I slipped them into my dossier. So. This is why Heidegger is so frustrated. Sephiroth had been somewhat like a son to him.

"_Am I understood, Captain?"_

I was honest. _"No, sir."_

"_By the looks of it, Sephiroth has gone completely out of his mind_." He summed it all up, colloquially_. "He has killed numerous civilians without prejudice, hindering our goodwill efforts and intelligence gathering opportunities. He's murdered members of this army. And now he runs wild in the north, without any control from command. Therefore, your orders are,_" Rufus said, handing me a couple of thin, transparent papers with the word "classified" stamped across the top, _"to proceed up the western coast of the Island, past the mountain region. Go to the cave to the north."_

The whole conversation had been surreal. Before I was able to digest one shocking event, Rufus had thrown another one at me. But now I understood why he'd asked me if I'd ever been intimate with Sephiroth.

"_Eliminate Sephiroth," _he said, the words sending chills down to my feet, "_and bring back evidence of his death."_

Kill Sephiroth. If I could have, I would have laughed in his face, but the idea of _trying _to kill him doesn't disturb me as much as what I think I'll find when I get to him.

"_Evidence, sir?"_

"_The Masamune blade." _Came Heidegger's dark voice, his back turned to the dinner table.

"_We trust that you're the only one fit for this job, Captain." I wonder fucking why,_ I thought. At this, Rufus Shinra really seemed to humble himself a bit—this Sephiroth incident is killing them, both. _"Along the way, you'll meet other officers who will hand off more of the dossier. The file you are holding is incomplete." _He took a drag from his cigarette.

"_This is a classified mission. Our front hasn't gone anywhere near the north yet, so you will be behind enemy lines. Remember to maintain sound and noise discipline, and destroy the dossier when you finish reading it."_

"_And what if I don't finish the mission?" _I asked, just to test him.

"_Haha," _Rufus laughed, returning to his old self. _"I was waiting for you to ask that."_ He took another drag and walked up to me, stating the conditions plainly.

"_Complete this mission and you'll be done on the Western Island. I'll send you to Midgar myself, where you'll be promoted to major, given a handful of decorations and two months of leave to Costa del Sol. Return with the mission failed," _he began again, his voice remaining unchanged. _"Sephiroth will decimate any chances of us taking this island. The war will be lost, and _you _will be out of work. Before that even happens, you'll be dismissed from the officer corps, and you'll be demoted to private. You will not be able to reapply for officer school for the duration of your career. Furthermore, your SOLDIER qualification will be revoked. Understand?"_

Damn, I thought. For failing an impossible mission?

"_Oh yeah,"_ Rufus said, walking back towards me to hand me the dossier before sending me away. _"You have seven days to complete this mission. If we don't hear from you after that, consider the mission failed. In that case, a rescue team will not be sent out. After three weeks, if we hear nothing from you, your status will change from MIA to KIA. The death notice your family will receive will say that you were killed by a sniper, or something mundane like that." _He handed me a little cyanide pill enclosed in an undissolvable, waterproof capsule. _"I doubt you'll need this, but take it anyway."_

I knew he wasn't saying that to be an asshole: from the looks of it, several rescue teams had been sent out, only for advancing groups to find their maimed bodies with Sephiroth's signature carved into them.

As if reading my mind, Rufus's last words were, _"Please don't let that happen to you, Captain. We'd like to see you again, some day."_

Yeah, right.

--

Of course, Heidegger and Shinra aren't just gonna send me on foot or have me swim if I need to be back in a week, so they send me a pick-up—a tiny, quiet patrol boat armed for combat, manned by a fire squad.

When my pick-up arrives, I'm a little disappointed to learn that there are only four of them. I was hoping there would be a couple more so that at least _one_ could deliver my dead body back to Shinra. But, I guess it's for the best--the more people there are, the more I feel like more than one of them is going to die, and it's _my _mission, so I don't really like the idea that it would only be to get me to where I need to go.

When they introduce themselves, I'm even more dismayed that they give me either first names, or names that that _have_ to be nicknames. I hate feeling like I know people when it's not going to be for long.

The driver and highest ranking of the bunch (yet still not higher ranking than me) is Tseng, a Wutainese native who speaks our language without an accent. A bit battle-hardened and tough, he reminds me of me, sort of: quiet and spiteful, choosing to observe rather than act until he knows exactly what's going on. _He doesn't like me_, I think with a smile as he nods after I greet him and jump on his boat. The fact that he's Wutainese, though, throws me off a bit: although it occurs to me that he's old enough to have moved away long ago, I wonder about how it feels to be back in his native lands, fighting for the other side, but he looks like the type of person who wouldn't appreciate that sort of intrusion on his personal life.

Then, there's Rude from a well-to-do family in Upper Midgar, a bald guy who doesn't seem to like shaving. He _tries _to be quiet, but I think that's only because someone had told him that in the military, it's best to keep your mouth shut and your ideas to himself, and he believed it—because when he does talk, he doesn't shut up.

Reno is a young slum kid from Midgar, who apparently has a knack for mechanics, despite only recently learning how to read and write. Now, he _really_ doesn't shut up, and I have to keep reminding him not to salute me when we're on the boat so that I don't get shot. Of the bunch, he's the most careful about his appearance, even though no matter how much he combs that nappy red hair of his, it's always gonna look like a rat's nest. The dope fiend, he shares the drugs his friends send him from Midgar with the rest of the boat.

Lastly, there's the youngest—Eli, a jittery blonde seventeen year old boy who seems like he wants to identify with the rest of the group, but can't seem to do anything right. Before I even found out, I knew he was from some military family in Junon—I could smell the overzealous "my daddy's a general and I'm gonna be a general one day, too" complex. Tseng is especially concerned for his safety. The others think he's annoying and fuck with him a lot, but also give him advice. When there's nothing else to do, Eli pulls out flash cards that he made out of the boxes of our rations, and he helps Reno practice the alphabet and mid-level vocabulary. Although Eli is a few years younger than Reno, Reno still appears to be the youngest, at least in my opinion.

All in all, the crew works, I guess, like their own little family. To them, or at least to Tseng, it seems that I'm an intruder, so for the most part I stay out of the way and lay on the ground in the shade, thumbing through my dossier as they go about their business.

--

Next chapter's already written, but I'd like to go through it a couple of times before posting: Cid's up next, so it'll be _fun_. XD


	4. incoming

**flyery:** You know, you could be right. I was thinking that people might see that the chapters are uncapitalized and think of it as unprofessionalism and judge the story based on that, but... _that's stupid!_ I might change it anyway, though. Hee hee. Thank you!  
**corncob: **I love long reviews! Yay! You know, I'm not quite sure if Marlow himself equals Cloud, but I do know that Marlow equals CPT Willard (A.Now) and Willard definately equals Cloud. So I'm sure in that way it should translate... I guess, in a twisted manner. But oh... you've read the book but you haven't seen the movie?! WATCH IT. Seriously. I actually got EXTREMELY pissed off in my senior AP class because my teacher (who is kind of squeamish and girly) refused to show us even _clips_ of A.Now in our "Heart of Darkness" unit, but she fucking showed "The Devil Wears Prada" to study... metaphors? My ass! I only just saw A.Now for the first time a couple of weeks ago, and I had to pretty much find a copy of Heart of Darkness to follow along with it because it's been so long (about a year and a half), but it really is a literal translation of the book, though in a time period that we can relate a little bit more to. The idea of juxtaposing HoD into the Vietnam War/Army is brilliant in my opinion, and it works very well. Okay this is long. XD Keep reading and reviewing; I'll keep writing! Thanks!  
**Volpa: **You must also see A.Now, if you liked Heart of Darkness! As I said to corncob, it really is a great, relatable translation of the book. And thank you for the concrit; I'll fix it when I can zero in on the mistakes! Thanks again!

**  
four : incoming.**

The deeper into the dossier I get, the further back the dates on the pictures go. In comparison to photos taken more recently, Sephiroth _did_ seem different back when he was my commanding officer, I suppose, but when you're in the shit for too long, can't _anyone_ go insane?

When I read his records, it seems that Shinra had constructed his career from scratch. I don't see any enlistment records or anything indicating that he had been initiated into the army and commissioned after going to war school. No mention of family members or anything—it was like he had just always been here, with Shinra.

I think back to when I knew him, personally: aside from him being my CO, we were really just fuck buddies. Nobody could see himself getting close to Sephiroth, and as "close" as I was to him, I never dared to ask about his past, beyond experience in the military. When I think of why, I hit a blockade: a lot of times, even normal people didn't live wholesome lives before joining Shinra, and such a subject is somewhat forbidden ground.

I hear Reno's loud foot stomps as he approaches my area of the deck and move my leg along with the arm holding the papers, which he barely misses as he jumps down from the small roof of the boat.

"Oop, 'scuse me, sir." He rummages through the box with remnants of freeze-dried rations inside of it, pulling out a tiny package of peanut butter. "Ooh! Found one." Then he screams over the deck, hurting my ears. "Rude, ya fuckin' liar! You said you ate it all!" When I turn away from him, annoyed, he covers his mouth a bit before continuing to yell, which doesn't make much of a difference.

I put the dossier away neatly: I shouldn't suspect that these guys would have the nerve to go through it without me looking, but I do anyway.

The boat is mostly made of fiberglass and metal, and during the day when the sun shines the most, it gets quite hot. We all walk around with our shirts off—with the exception of Tseng, who stays as fully clothed as possible—and with no shoes, to keep our feet from rotting in the moist, hot weather. I pull myself up on the bar that supports the small roof and jump past the cabin of the boat, to the right of Tseng, and lean one arm over the back of his chair.

After a few moments, he speaks to me for the first time in his quite, stern voice.

"So where are we headed to, Captain?"

"For now," I say, lighting a cigarette, which Tseng fans away, irately. I look at him for a moment before putting it out on the bottom of my bare foot—which is wet—before I continue. "For now, the yellow zone, just before the second bridge. We're hooking up with air-cav there before continuing. There, they'll help us get to a point where we can go north."

"Uh-huh," he says, his colloquial tone still impressive to me. "This, I know. But how about after that?"

I shake my head. "Classified."

"There aren't too many places beyond the yellow zone to go, you know." Tseng says. "…Captain." He adds as an afterthought, with great emphasis. "It's either up or down."

"We're going up. That's all I can tell you. You'll just have to trust me."

"Past orange?"

"Past orange," I nod.

Tseng stops talking now, but despite his calm demeanor, I know I've made him like me even less.

After several minutes of silence, Tseng says again, "You know, Captain. Anything past orange zone is most definitely enemy territory."

Him using the words "enemy territory" throw me off a bit. "I know."

"You do, don't you? Then how the hell do you suppose we're going to get there if we're going into hot water? Sir?"

"Orders," I say quietly, shaking my head.

Unwilling to start an argument with the driver of the boat, and giving Tseng the chance to maintain face, I turn around and walk back to the cabin before he can say anything else.

--

Right now, we're heading to the next village where an air cavalry unit is finishing up operations. There, I'm supposed to talk to the CO, one Lieutenant Colonel Cid Highwind, who can get me past the patch of deep water on the Island's coast that our little boat won't be able to cross.

We arrive some two and a half hours after leaving Rufus Shinra and Heidegger's post to find the area, a tiny village of burnt out wooden huts, still under dissipating hostile fire. In full gear and rifles—or sword, in my part—at the ready, I depart the boat with Reno, Rude and Eli, running past injured or dying natives on the beach, not really sure which ones are hostile and which ones are refugees. Everywhere, the sparkle of discarded or dropped materia from the bodies reflects off of the sun.

Things don't become any less hectic as we approach solid ground, and we notice Shinra soldiers walking around, writing down statistics, doing body counts, gathering the war dead's materia into bags, and loading refugees into helicopters. A Wutainese-Midgarian Shinra soldier translates as an officer explains to them that they are refugees and not prisoners of war, and it all adds to the noise of the battlefield. As I half-listen, I get the odd feeling that it wouldn't make a difference anyway; refugees to a foreign nation just end up war slaves anyway, building the enemy's nation for them due to a lack of option.

My headgear hurts for some reason, so I unfasten it and let the straps dangle on either side of my cheeks, then fasten it again when my hair starts pushing it off my head.

I pass by a medic bandaging an unconscious (or dead) Shinra soldier with an open chest wound as I hear Eli go, "Did we just miss something?" I go back, toying with my helmet on the way, and the medic stands upright and shoots me only the third salute I've received since I'd been back.

"Where's Colonel Highwind, soldier?"

As if on cue, the distinctive, coarse voice of a smoker cuts through the rest of the noise—the gunfire, the choppers, and the wailing injured—with a string of swears.

"Goddamnit, man," the voice says, and I look around to see where it's coming from. "I fuckin' _told_ you—nobody leaves this area until we've secured a goddamn perimeter! You gonna make me repeat myself, lieutenant?"

"That would be him, sir," the medic says, thrusting his bloody arm in the direction of a palm tree where another officer is being berated by a man in a scarf. "Just follow the swearing and you'll find him!"

"Eli, Rude," I yell over the chopper above my head, "Why don't you head back to the boat and hang out with Tseng? I'll just take Reno with me."

Eli gives me a "roger," shoulders his weapon and he and Rude head back down the beach, looking about them at the hollowed huts on their way. I turn to approach Highwind, a rough looking, unshaven man of about forty, who is still cussing out the poor lieutenant, even as his head seems as though it would sink into the ground any minute. As I interrupted him to salute and introduce myself, he looks me up and down, almost offended by my presence and as if to ask, "Who the fuck are you?"

"Sir, Captain Cloud Strife from the fifty-first." He salutes me half-assed, more out of instinct. Unable to take it anymore, I remove my helmet for a minute to adjust the straps and my hair pops up, jutting in every direction.

"What the hell's goin' on with your head, soldier?" He scolds me like I'm one of his privates, but I'm embarrassed anyway—there's not a whole lot I can do about the way my hair juts out, and I've gotten hell for it since the very day I joined the army.

"Uhh," I say, fumbling with my sword and digging into my pocket to fish out the folded, thin copy of orders, and try to make it quick, as it seems like this man has a shitty attention span.

"Sir," I begin, unfolding the paper to show it to him. He takes it from me and instead of reading it, looks back and forth between it and me. "I've been assigned to a mission taking me up north, but I'm gonna need you to get me closer to the red zone—"

Someone yells for incoming and everyone—except Highwind, who just looks around as if the wind might have picked up—ducks. When we stand back up, we hear soldiers crying for a medic and Highwind swears and takes off with the copy of my orders, absent-mindedly crumpling it in his hand along the way.

I stare at my empty palm for a minute before I realize that aside from the colonel making off with my orders, Reno isn't behind me. I step off in the direction of Highwind, then stop when I spot Reno, climbing into one of the empty helicopters that air cav operates. Initially unsure if I should grab Reno first and risk losing the colonel, I march off toward the helicopter and grab Reno by the collar, dragging him towards Highwind, his rifle cluttering against the machine as I pull him away.

"Hey—hey, lemme go, y'asshole! Who d'ya think you are?"

Ignoring his disrespect, I stop and turn to him, my finger in his face. "Don't. _Fucking._ Touch. _Anything._ That _you_, yourself, were _not_ issued. That said, don't go anywhere unless I say it's okay. Stay not even a foot behind me. You got it?"

Reno looks as if he's going to bite my finger off. He shakes out of my grip and challenges me with a surprisingly dignified stare. Calmly, I explain, "Look. This shit doesn't belong to us. You can't just go poking around in places and messing shit up."

"I was just looking."

"We're about to _get on_ one, Reno. You can look and touch and feel all you want, if they say it's okay. Mainly, I'm responsible for you; this place is still hot, and if you go and get killed, it's gonna be my ass for not having accountability of you. Also, I need all four of you guys' help. So just do as I say."

Reno sets his jaw and holds his rifle at the ready as I walk off, looking for the guy in the scarf with the shiny silver rank. I find him shouting orders at medics and snatching a radioman's receiver from him while he contacts HQ, walking off in odd directions and dragging him along with him. I wait patiently as the radioman becomes tangled in his cord and falls to his feet; all around us, soldiers are still torching huts with flame throwers and leading groups of enemy Wutainese out of burning structures, their hands on their heads, their clothing in rags.

Anywhere Highwind is seems to be a completely different world, for in our little circle, soldiers smoke and pick at their rations as injured or dead Wutainese lay at their feet, while other soldiers order said group of "enemy" into a ditch and fire into it. I can't be sure that all of them are combatants, but what does it matter—if I interfere, I probably won't finish this mission, so when Highwind yells at me, I choose to snap out of it and let it go.

"Hey, asshole! Yeah, you!" Highwind spits, still on the receiver. "Where'd you say you were from again?"

"Nibelheim, sir," I repeat in a daze, before suddenly realizing that I'd never even told him my hometown. Just as he begins a string of swears cursing my mother and stupidity, I shake my head and say, "The fifty-first airborne. Oh, shit, um, HQ sent me here, sir. This is a priority mission from them."

"What a dipshit," he mutters to his lieutenant as he comes up to me, unraveling my now ruined orders from his fist. "Okay, so what… we gotta get you past orange, right? You know it's hot out there?"

Not sure if he's talking about the weather or the amount of enemy activity, the answer is 'yes' either way, so I give a slight nod and, as if he has a choice, ask him politely if he can help us out. He examines the paper again.

"Fuck HQ. Only they would do some bullshit like this—send me some motherfucker that needs something when I'm in the middle of operations. Huh?" He says, looking up at his XO, the lieutenant, who nods submissively in agreement. "Look, Captain, I can get yer little boat to orange zone, but yer gonna have to gimme a damn minute. My estimates are…oh… say…"

He looks up at the sky just as a helicopter passes over and becomes distracted again, walking towards where it's landing as he talks and I follow, hurriedly. The dust is blowing in my face from the helicopter and I can hardly see anything, but I look back over my shoulder to make sure Reno is tracking on me. Incoming is called again and as I duck, he barely misses the affected area, lifting his foot and turning back around as if he were about to step in dog shit.

"Tomorrow evening, seventeen-hundred."

"_Seventeen-hundred_, sir?" I hurry after him to the helicopter, thinking it might be replacements or rations or something important with how he regards it. But as the soldiers climb out and pass barbecue pits, coolers, and beer down a line, I stop, wondering if I've entered the fucking twilight zone.

Around us, enemy fire is still being suppressed, but it dies along with the waning sounds of Wutainese enemy, swearing at us in our language.

Seventeen-hundred. Waiting even overnight annoys me, but I can do with that. Tomorrow morning is a go. But fucking _five tomorrow evening?_ I consider daring to interrupt and point out on my now barely-readable orders that my mission has priority, but before I can, Reno pipes up into the chatter.

"Sir, are you… _the_ Cid Highwind?"

I look at Reno, wondering where in the hell he'd heard his name from, but then I remember. Illiterate mechanics whiz. Right.

Highwind turns to him, a cigarette in his mouth, his scarf blowing everywhere from the chopper and catching on his stubble for added effect. "The hell you know about _me,_ soldier?" he says gruffly, and I groan inwardly when I think that the two might bond or develop a kinship.

Reno's mouth drops open, like a child's. "You designed these things," he says to the helicopters, all fitted with large, fifteen-plus materia slotted guns. "You're the god of air warfare."

"Well, shit, son," Cid says, failing at appearing humble. "I wouldn't say all that about me… well, I guess I would. What's your name, soldier?"

"Reno, sir."

I turn away as the conversation deepens with hearty laughter and claps on the back, lighting a cigarette.

A grenade is mistakenly thrown in our direction, and soldiers fly everywhere trying to get out of the way as someone screams "fire in the hole" a second too late. It goes off before I can duck, and I wince as a piece of shrapnel grazes the bottom of my right cheek. I stand up as the dust rolls, bringing a hand to my bloody face.

"Yeah, sure, _blow up_ the goddamn CO," comes Highwind's voice. "We don't need him! What the _fuck_ are you doing!"

"Sorry, sir! Mis… misfire!"

"I'm fuckin' standin' _right_ here!"

--

In the middle of **five**; stay tuned!

By the way: if you're in this for the slash, I'm sorry to say that this is _not _one of those stories that completely revolves around a yaoi relationship: however, it's coming. Oh, is it _coming_. I promise. :D


	5. she likes it on top

Writing this chapter took a while, though I'm not sure why. A bit of Cloud x Tifa ahead. Sorry yaoifans, but I prefer Cloud to be more bisexual than anything—I find that more believable.

**five : she likes it on top.**

Night rolls in and although I'm a trifle pissed off that I'm still in Highwind's field of operations, I become fascinated by the way he runs his battalion. He swears at them, but I can tell by the way he does his own work that he cares about his men a lot. That's a good—and unfortunately rare—thing. I haven't really had my own soldiers to work with yet, so I can't quite relate or say how I'd do things.

After listening to his stories from afar, it turns out that Cid _did_ indeed invent the helicopter models that air cavalry uses today. Of course, he should be sitting somewhere in Costa del Sol with billions of gil in his bank, but he chose to stay in the army. Crazy. In addition, he would have made general if it weren't for several skirmishes with the law and insubordination—his rank is set to remain at lieutenant colonel for a long time more, but he seems fine being with his boys.

The barbecues were, in fact, not a figment of my imagination—as if the beach hadn't been strewn with corpses hours before, a battalion-wide beach party occurs, reminiscent of some of the drunken events I'd had in garrison, back when Sephiroth was my CO. The kids—that's what we all are, right?—sit around fires, playing guitars they obtained by dubious means, and blaring radios. The food they cook is for some reason a lot better than what Rufus and Heidegger had—more than anything, it reminds me of Midgar's slums, where everything is more homemade than up on the plate.

While I'm here, my mail manages to find me by way of a short, stocky private named Wedge. I'm so startled by his presence—weight, namely—that it takes me a while to realize that he's trying to address me.

"Sir," he says kindly, handing me my mail, which is only a fat envelope from Tifa. I take it from him and watch as he leaves, wondering how he passed the initial physical inspection and saying to myself, _"Well, _he's_ not going to make it."_

A sick game soldiers play. Anytime we pass someone who might seem out of place, who determine whether or not their survival is possible, maybe how long it might take or how it might occur. I can't help but do it, too. That kid won't be able to run from the enemy and will get plugged right up his fat little ass.

I open Tifa's letter, post marked about a week and a half ago, but her jagged, tag-like handwriting doesn't have the same effect on me as it usually does.

_Cloud,_

_Hey, I received your letter from a couple of weeks back. I'm so sorry your leave was canceled! Of course, I'm even more sorry that I don't get to see you_. (Here, she drew a sad face.)

_The bar is busier than ever with all the soldiers coming home from the front on leave. I get so sad when I see that some of them have lost an eye or a leg or an arm. Sometimes I cry at night when I think that something like this may have happened to you—especially when you don't write for a while. But, I have to remember—soldiers are busy. In fact, I think you've sent me more letters since you've been deployed than when you were stationed at Junon. _

_Sometimes,_ I think as I look up at the colonel, who has Reno at his side like they've been best friends for life_, I wish Tifa could come up with something better to say._ She's written the same shit in three other letters.

I skim the rest of her three pages, only stopping when I see that she's written something about my mother.

_Anyway, I got a letter from your mom about a week ago, asking if I knew how you'd been. She sounded very worried. I'm guessing that means that you haven't written to her in a while, but I don't think my Cloud would ignore his mother like that, so I'll just pass it off as her only wanting someone to talk to about you. _

_I have to get back to work, so I'll end this letter. Love you, come home safe and in one piece. _

_No pun intended, Tifa._

Enclosed is a bar of white chocolate from Nibelheim that my mother sent her—our little mountain town isn't famous for much, except its chocolate. Back in the day, my favorite was known to be white chocolate with almonds, but I haven't been much responsive to sweets as of late.

--

I heard the other guys whispering about me, asking each other where they think I might be from.

"Where d'ya think the captain's from," Reno whispered to Rude (in vain; I could hear him the loudest), after they'd come up from the boat to get something to eat.

"I don't know. I want to say Midgar, but…"

"No," Eli said before lifting his canteen to his lips, "Icicle Inn. Look at his hair and his eyes!"

"Naw, it's gotta be like… Kalm or something."

"Who cares," Tseng said as he neatly picked at the small rib in his hands. "Just stay focused on your job."

"He don't got an accent," Reno ignored Tseng. "So he can't be from far off."

"Reno, _you_ have an accent, and you're from Midgar."

"Thass _different._"

I chuckled, but continued to pretend not to hear them. Soldiers like that game, too: determining where a superior is from, since they're not always willing to volunteer that information.

Young folks from Nibelheim don't have an accent. There was a regional dialect spoken there, but the Midgar Standard was established as the official language and the schools began teaching it a couple of decades before I was born. My mother still knows it, and remnants of an accent are present, but I only know a couple of words here and there. Tifa probably knows more than I do.

I have to keep reminding myself that Tifa is actually a smart girl, but whenever I think of why she would waste her time chasing people like me, especially now, I tend to forget. I know she could find someone who would be good to her and spoil her and treat her like a lady rather than a centerfold, but she seems devoted to her life as a single tattoo artist-slash-bartender, having one-night stands with soldiers, customers, and me all the same.

Regardless of who she fucks when I'm gone, all bets are off when I come home, and that bothers me. It would make me much more comfortable if she were herself all the time, but I also tend to forget—if she were, we probably wouldn't be as good of friends as we are now.

I want to start this off with that cliché phrase of "Tifa and I go _way_ back," but we don't—unless you consider a goodbye fuck when I was fourteen and shipped off to the army the next morning 'way back.'

But by the way one would look at us together, one would guess that we'd been childhood friends since the cradle. When I lost my virginity to Tifa, I knew that she had most definitely _not_ lost hers to me, which was kind of disappointing, but it was a take or leave situation—I longed to be a part of her life for as long as I'd known her, which is pretty much my whole existence. She didn't notice me until word had gotten around that I was leaving for the army; she came to say goodbye, we took a walk, ended up in the empty, noisy reactor in the mountains and there you have it—a friendship that'll last a lifetime.

After that, we wrote letters to each other obsessively. I don't know what transformed her; I honestly don't think my dick was _that_ big when I was fourteen and still learning the words "pre-cum" and "titties." I didn't see her again until almost a year in the army, and upon my return home our reunion seemed like that of a heroic, battle torn young soldier coming home to his long lost loved one.

During that leave period, when I wasn't spending time with my mother, who actually shed a tear (she's not the type; trust me) when she saw me "all grown up," Tifa and I were together, making up for time lost. I sat at the little bar in town she worked at and watched her draw—I recalled her as an artist when we were young, but she surprised me by saying that she'd like to start doing tattoos.

"Tattoos," I said, knocking back a shot of vodka. "What do you know about tattoos?"

She leaned over the bar, her breasts flattening against the surface. "Don't you think they're kinda hot?"

"…I've never considered it."

"Check it out," she said, throwing her leg up over the bar with astounding flexibility and hiking up her skirt to show me the colored ink of a thorned rose on her upper thigh.

"Where the hell did you get that?" I ask, surprised. Her dad would kill her and blame it on me if he knew about it.

"Remember Johnny?" She took her leg off the bar and adjusted herself. "He's been traveling around. While he was in Midgar he got a vocation for it. He came back and did this one for free."

Johnny was one of her little boyfriends that she grew up with. No doubt, she fucked him, I was sure. I took another shot and tried to appear indifferent.

"Tell you what," she said. "I'll save up enough money to go to tattoo school and… I'll give you one. For free."

"For what? What would I get?"

"It's your tattoo. What _would_ you get, Cloud?"

I thought for a second. "I want it to be army related."

She looked at me in disbelief. "_Army?_ Cloud, you're not always gonna be in the army."

Almost offended, I balk. "How would you know? I like my job. Besides. 'No such thing as ex-SOLDIER,'" I said, knocking back my third shot and becoming _quite_ drunk. But I meant what I was saying, in more ways than one. "It sticks with you."

The sloppy, oily kiss that happened afterward ended us up in the hotel—which, I'm glad that each time we did it there, I was drunk. I might as well have had sex right outside both our parents' houses. I was told in private by the owner the next day that Tifa and I were very loud, and while she was mortified, I was beyond caring—that soldier thing again, I guess.

But, I'm pretty sure that most of the noise didn't come from me railing her against the bedpost, since she likes the top. No, the unique thing about Tifa and I is that we connect the most when we're doing it: that's when our best conversations occur and when we can most effectively reflect ideas off of each other.

The first night of my leave, sex with her was like being on one of Midgar's more dangerous drugs—we were both drunk and kept bursting out into fits of laughter for no apparent reason as we talked casually about our future. As she rode me, she tried to smother me with her breasts and I thought it was the most hysterical thing ever. Only with her can I be this stupid, I think. This is why Tifa is my best friend, and won't become anything more.

When we were finished, we joked about how the bed sank in further than it did when we first got there, smothering laughs and trying to be quiet when it was a little too late to be concerned.

"Hey," I said, half-seriously. She rested her head on my naked bicep as I lit a cigarette, still trying to impress her. "You should go to Midgar."

"Huh?"

"I'll probably end up there eventually, after Junon."

She lifted herself up to look at me. "Why are you going to Junon?"

"Officer school."

"_What_? You got selected to go to officer school?"

Exhaling smoke and fighting the cough, I nodded coolly at her. "They really liked my performance during the SOLDIER trials. They said I had good leadership skills. Pfft."

"How long will you be there?"

"Well… officer school is a year long, but I might be there for a little longer for language training."

"What would I want in Midgar?"

"Tattoos."

She twisted her mouth in one direction, and with a "hmm" lifted her head off my chest and back onto her pillow.

"How would I live there?"

"Go to Sector Six and open a bar there. That's where all the soldiers go to hang out. You'd never run out of business, especially with these," I said, punching her breasts playfully.

"Ow!" She grabbed them and shielded them protectively as I cracked up. "If that's how soldiers treat pretty girls, then forget it!"

--

But of course she went. She's still there in Sector Six, too, with her tattoo parlor and conjoined bar, making a relatively good living for someone with no work experience. I imagine her hunched over her empty bar in the dim lights, working out new designs on pieces of paper, her breasts inevitably getting in her way.

Before my thoughts can erupt into dirty ones, the rare form of a female in uniform approaches. She walks awkwardly, dodging elbows and outstretched legs in the sand by trying to tiptoe, which looks slightly ridiculous in her steel-toed boots.

She addresses me, and I see that she holds the rank of major, but that her uniform is messed up: her rifle qualification is on the wrong side and her brown ponytail sticks out of her headgear and hangs down her back.

I can't see her face because the moon is behind her. Passively, she salutes—which is wrong, I'm supposed to salute her first—and asks me if I'm Cloud Strife.

"I uh… I have this…" She fumbles with the package, wrapped in waterproof material and before she can drop it into the sand I simply take it from her hands. She gives an exasperated sigh. "Anyway, that's from command."

I examine it and flip it over, seeing that it bears Shinra's seal and the words "confidential." More of the dossier. I sigh, since I'm not even really done looking at the first part thoroughly.

"Thanks, ma'am," I say, and wait for her to leave. When she doesn't, I look back up at her slowly, and she's fumbling with her web gear for something and kneeling next to me.

"Your face is bleeding," she says, and I feel the cool sting of a wetnap against the cut from the grenade shrapnel hours earlier. "Y'know, I understand that you're a man and all, but it's very easy to get infections out here. Plus there are several diseases that we don't know about on this island… and you can't always wash your hands, can you?"

I say nothing as she talks, but just enjoy being touched gently by someone—it sends little vibrations rattling up and down my head and spine, reminding me of when my mother would rake her fingers through my hair absent-mindedly, when she thought of some far away place.

She unwraps a sterile cloth and dries the wound, covering it with a regular sized, simple adhesive bandage, her thumb lingering against the it.

"The name's Jessie, by the way." I catch a glimpse of the unit patch on her arm and it recognize her division as mine, and I remember her from base at Midgar. She's the chief nurse there. "I hate last names."

"Yeah, well," I say, awkwardly. "I guess we're almost the same rank anyway." The fuck is it with everyone wanting to tell me their first name?

"You grabbin' ass over there, major?" Highwind's voice calls, and I'm reminded—I need to talk to him about my mission. "Cap'n don't need you breathing down his neck! He got enough bitches at home! Don'tcha, Strife?"

"Why don't you mind your own fucking business, Cid?" She replies in a surprisingly deeper tone, and everyone around them "ooohs," including Cid. "God. Can't anyone have a decent conversation in the army?" She stands up to walk away before I can thank her. The lieutenant colonel continues to heckle her.

"_Decent?_" He says. "_Army? _Get the hell outta here!"

"I'm goin', I'm goin'. But hey, don't come crying to me when your ass gets shredded to ribbons by one of your own damned creations." It shouldn't, because I've heard of it happening before, but the image in my head of a chopper going down and the pilot surviving only to be cut to pieces by the still-rotating blades as he tries to climb out of the wreckage gives me a bad feeling about the colonel's future. He goes off on her after that, using all kinds of sexual slurs, and she returns with a few of her own, including a couple of lines insulting his dick size.

As the verbal aggression continues, I make my way over to Highwind and sit between him and Reno, who seems to have integrated himself in with air cav quite nicely. He goes between conversing with his old buddies, who look as though they're feeling left out, and his new ones.

"You dirty slut," Highwind growls, dismissively waving Major "Jessie" off. "Go on, shoo. I got man's business to handle. Cap'n," he shouts, genuinely eager for her to leave. "Show us where exactly this drop off point is."

"Have fun, Captain," Jessie says as she heads off up shore, where the rest of medical sits, still tending to soldiers wounded from the day's battle. So far, she's the only female military personnel I've seen on the Island—I know there must be more, but that game soldier's play where we try to guess fate… I can't help but do it with her too.

"Captain!" Highwind barks, and my head snaps towards his angry voice. "Ain't got all night! You wanna go or not?"

"Oh, sorry sir." From my pocket, I pull out the "restricted" marked plastic bag that protects my maps and open the one without my route marked. Tseng, who I had forgot was even there, emerges behind me, listening with interest to details regarding the fate of his boat. With my pinky, I point and slide my finger across the image appropriately.

"All I need is to get past this patch of water, sir," I say, indicating the small, dark blue portion of the map. "I know it's not long, but that part of the ocean could swallow us up and wash us out to sea."

"For _that_ little blue piece of water, you need _me _to airlift your little matchbox? Shit!" He says, lighting his millionth cigarette of the evening. "You're fuckin' killing me. Fuckin' waste of my time! I got ops to do! Villages to take! Woo to kill! Shit to _blow up!_"

"Apologies, sir," I say calmly, but firmly. "But the orders come from headquarters."

"Yeah, yeah, don't I goddamn well know it."

By now, Reno and the rest of the crew, except for Eli, who sits like a good little boy cleaning the sand out of his rifle, are now looking over my shoulder at the map.

"Hold it sir," one of the air cav flunkies says, and he points to where my pinky was—the destination I need them to get me to before I can continue with this mission. "You said… here, right?"

"Right."

He shook his head, and then obviously addressed his CO, not me. "Can't. Woo is in there, sir."

Woo. A racial slur for Wutainese, based on the "wu" in the beginning of the country's name, and the fact that Woo is a common Wutainese surname. Remembering that Tseng is behind me, I give the soldier a dirty look and think to tell him to watch his mouth, but remember that his CO is standing right there—in fact, Highwind had just used it himself. I glance behind me to look at Tseng, but he doesn't seem bothered by it. Actually, I noticed that nobody has really acknowledged his existence at all since he came up from the boat.

"Whaddya mean _'Woo is in there?'_" Cid says, squinting his eyes and crinkling his nose. "Fuck Woo! You scared of Woo, sergeant?"

The soldier shakes his head rapidly and said, "N-No, sir, but uh… how can we land the Captain into enemy territory? They're dug in pretty well."

"I'll goddamn tell ya how," Highwind explodes, deeply offended, jumping to his feet and knocking his beer over into the sand. "There's only _one_ way to do it, and that's if One-oh-second Air Cav does it. Goddamnit, _I _ain't afraid of no goddamn Woo."

By now, the half-drunk soldiers have all stopped to turn and look at their commander threaten the unknown and cheer at every word. I have no idea what's in that area. The map only references a very small village, but from what the sergeant said, it could be anything. But I have no other option, and no reason to argue: by the looks of it, I have a ride, and I get to start with a clear path as long as air cav goes with me.

"Does that mean we're leaving sooner, sir?" Tseng asks me, eager to be back in command of his patrol boat. I nod, and project the question to Highwind, interrupting one of his moments of glory.

"Sir, any chances of leaving sooner?"

"Don't worry about a damn thing," Highwind says, and I almost face fault for a second. "You just have your boys up and ready to go at zero four-thirty."

"Roger that," I say. It's nearly midnight now, so I immediately turn to the crew and say, "Get some sleep. We're up in four and a half hours."

--

Sorry for being brutal to Wedge; I just watched the "jelly donut" scene from Full Metal Jacket.

God, I don't know why, but that was agonizing. Anyway, on a humorous note, my beta-reader, Ballsack Neko (yes, that's his name), had to stop me from turning Cloud into a complete fucking asshole:

BN: -editing- _While I'm here, my mail manages to find me by way of a short, stocky private named Wedge. I'm so startled by his presence—weight, namely—that it takes me a while to realize that he's trying to address me.  
_BN: "...you're fat... are you trying to talk to me?"  
Me: HAHAHAHA  
Me: I TOTALLY WASN'T TRYING TO SAY THAT  
Me: That makes Cloud sound like a valley girl.  
BN: XD kinda.  
BN: "Uh. Oh sorry. I didn't know if you were still chewing food or speaking. What do you have for me?"  
Me: GODDAMNIT  
Me: DON'T TEMPT ME  
Me: I'LL PUT THAT SHIT IN THERE  
BN: XD!!  
Me: I'll turn Cloud into an insensitive prick officer SO fast...  
BN: AoM: Cloud's a bitch version  
Me: Dude now I really want to change that whole paragraph. XD  
BN: rofl I'm sorry XD  
Me: in word right now  
Me: ...nigga you better stop me.  
BN: u.u nigga don't you dare  
BN: Cuz then like, Wedge is gonna be like "...wince"  
Me: Yeah but…  
Me: Wedge is a bitch anyway.

That's just the tip of the iceberg: our obscene sense of humor goes way beyond such.

Five up probably sometime this week. Hope you enjoyed!


	6. what the fine print don't tell you

Thanks for reviewing, as usual. Flyery, I'm glad you like my Tifa—honestly, I'm not a big Tifa fan at all, but somehow turning her into a tattoo artist sounded like it worked right for this situation… I rather like her now. XD

Before I get on with the story, I noticed that several people have faved or alerted this story… but haven't given me a review! Come on, you guys. Don't be shy; I don't bite. It's really the decent thing to do, and I'd really appreciate it.

**six : what the fine print don't tell you.**

I'll admit to knowing nothing about the army when I joined—well, aside from the whole wet dream of repelling from helicopters, conducting raids, wearing tiger striped camouflage and shooting someone in the face at point blank range. But saying you know about these things and seeing them on the television and actually doing them is quite different.

A lot of people I've met say that their first real shocker came when they actually _had _to shoot someone. I initially found this hard to believe since Shinra soldiers are infamous for having a quota when it comes to that sort of thing. With me, the shocker came with all the damn paperwork and red tape involved with being not only in the military, but a part of Shinra, period. You're like one of their investments, I suppose. A contract is a contract for a reason. Which is another thing—why eliminate Sephiroth, their greatest investment ever?

But really, it's meeting people like Cid and his boys that should shock me. Had I never left Nibelheim, I wouldn't have imagined such people—or brutality—existed.

--

I told the boys four hours, but I'm up in two. In the dark, I fasten my boots on and slip into my gear. I poke around the dying embers to make sure I have accountability of my boat boys—it's hard to make their faces out in the dark, so instead I check for the leviathan insignia on their shoulders, symbolizing that they're part of an amphibious assault division—they'd be the only four here with it.

When I'm ready to go and my sword is strapped on, I sit quietly and wait for the sun to creep into the sky and obliterate the stars. My anxiety pulls at me when I begin wondering when the hell Cid and his boys are going to wake up, and for a while I think nervously that he may not get around to taking me at four thirty. Today is, after all, a new day.

At around three forty-five, Cid begins to stir, and as if a telepathic link were present, the rest of his boys do, too—I don't even remember him fully announcing to the entire battalion when they'd leave, but I guess that's the difference between a close knit bunch like this and a group of rag-tag SOLDIER-qualified officers with no real loyalties to any unit. We go where we're told, and more often than not, that involves us being detached from our base units.

Within fifteen minutes, the entire battalion is up and stirring. I nudge my boat crew with the tip of my boot the second I see Cid stand up and yawn—at first, they flip over and refuse to be taken away from sleep, but when they hear Cid begin to bark orders, the slowly rise and get dressed, annoyed to see that I'm already in full gear and ready to go.

Tseng is the first one up and dressed, of course. As he brushes sand from his hair, wraps it into a bun and throws on his helmet, he takes up his rifle and heads off in the direction of the boat.

"I'm going to make sure our boat is secured and ready to go," he says to me, not waiting for an affirmation to continue.

A soldier with a coronet begins playing the music for wake-up call, and I jump, startled.

"Fuck!" Reno swears, grumpily, pulling himself to his feet after pulling his boots on. "Is all that shit _necessary_?"

Rude, who had slept with his mouth open all night, is busy trying to get all the sand out with his canteen, which is also covered in sand. "Careful, Reno," he says, awkwardly grinding grains of sand between his teeth and spitting. "Don't wanna upset your new friends."

"Aw, shaddup," Reno growls. "Ya big fuckin' baby."

"I have sand in my boots," Eli whines at the same time in an aggravatingly childish high-pitched voice, working to remove his footgear after having just put them on.

Rude can't stop spitting. "Anyone got a toothbrush?"

Leaving the scramble and the irritating sound of Tseng's crew complaining, I go over to their leader, who watches as several air cav crew hook the boat up to a chopper with long chords, about a foot thick.

"I just thought of another issue," Tseng says to me without turning around. "Are we going up to Wutai?"

"Tseng," I snap, annoyed that I've received little help or support at all during this as-of-yet short and complicated journey. "Quit fucking worrying about it and just get me there."

I turn away to light a cigarette as the chopper behind me comes to life. Perhaps I shouldn't have cut Tseng off like that, but it seems to me like he's trying to do everything in his power to keep me from going up coast and getting me off of his boat. Which, trust me—I don't want to be there any more than Tseng wants me there. His crew are a bunch of young, bumbling retards. One would think that if they're going to send me on a fucking suicide mission, I could use a crew with a bit more experience, or at the very least, maturity. But Heidegger gives me _this_, and an insane air cav CO. Great, guys; thanks a lot.

Fuck it, I decide. If it gets any worse, I'll just freakin' swim up north.

--

God, I thought I hated helicopters before, but there are _eight_ people aboard this motherfucker.

All five of us are riding with Highwind and his own crew, who are two gunners that sit on the edge of each opening on either side of the chopper manning the guns, and his pilot. Reno is over Highwind's shoulder as he teaches him the controls. Rude himself is talking to the gunner closest to him, a pale-skinned, platinum-blonde soldier from Icicle Inn.

"What's in there?" Rude yells to him, referring to the materia in the many slots on the side of the weapon.

"Nothing fancy," comes his heavily accented reply. He looks at Rude as if it were the most natural thing in the world to have someone gawk at him before engaging the enemy. "Just green-blue combinations… fire-all, confu-all… that's pretty much all we're allowed to use now."

"Why?"

"We quake the bastards, we'll cause a tsunami and wipe this whole region out," he says, gesturing to the earth below us. "Poison them and we might get our own guys too. Slow them, and humanitarian groups will consider us inhumane for letting them cook while they can't run."

"Fuck 'em!" Highwind's helmet oscillates in the front, and I see specks of saliva explode onto the controls. "Like those yuppie pricks gotta know _everything_!"

This is the first I'd heard of any concern for humanitarian groups' opinion of Shinra. I couldn't even imagine that the Company would allow them to come out here, or that they'd even care if they reported to the world what the see. But then I'm reminded that Shinra has some pretty innovated cover up tactics that they're itching to try out.

"Hey," Rude says, nudging the Icicle soldier, "Can I try a shot?"

"No," I say instantly. But of course, no one hears me.

"I dunno," the gunner shakes his little head, his unsecured helmet rattling on top of it. "It's up to the CO."

"What's up to the CO?" The colonel asks without turning around.

"One of the boat guys wants to shoot the big one, sir!"

"Don't worry about it, sir," I say to him. "I already said—"

"Well hell," Highwind interrupts again. "You know how to use materia, Baldy?"

"No," Rude and I say at the same time.

"Gotta learn sometime, I suppose," Highwind mumbles as he scratches underneath his earpiece. "Alright, alright. Give him a shot when we've suppressed the motherfuckers."

"Alright!" Reno cheers, leaning across me to give Rude a high five.

"Sir," I say quietly, coming forward and elbowing Reno out of the way. "He isn't qualified to u—"

"Y'know, Captain," he snarls, "You're _really_ gettin' on my goddamn nerves. This is _my_ goddamn piece'a heaven. Y'got that?"

I nod and sit back in my seat, deciding not to open my mouth anymore, at least until we're away from Highwind's crazy ass. On the way back, I look at Tseng to get an idea on how he feels about all this. He sits up straight in his chair, his head leaning onto his shoulder and his face half out into the air. Longingly, he looks at the island he might have once called his and smiles.

I'm sure he heard the entire exchange. Maybe he would have said something, if he didn't think I'd get chewed out for trying to keep his men in order.

--

The new piece of the dossier itches in my fingers, but until I leave this helicopter, I can't read it—I don't want to risk opening it and having some of the documents fly out the window. Though, I can't help but open it just to peek and see if there are any more pictures of Sephiroth.

After going through the first portion, it'd occurred to me that Sephiroth's presence in my life left a greater mark than I'd allowed myself to think. After he left the duty station we shared, it took about two weeks for me to file my memories of him in the back of my mind and not pull them up—to make him a "thing of the past," so they say. Which is actually a good thing—people come and go in the military and attachment doesn't do anyone any good. I wasn't sure if I'd be able to.

Keeping the folder close to my chest in my lap, I bend the top up and shift past the papers to the harder texture of photographs. I flip the first one down, expecting to see more of a younger Sephiroth accepting an award or some such, but am startled by what's there instead.

More mutilated corpses. Letting the rest of the dossier fall shut, I decide to keep it closed until I'm back on the boat.

I look out the door as we approach the destination—a coastal encampment set on a high cliff with no beach, marked by the standard of Wutai's empery rather than the standard some had adopted to symbolize alliance with Shinra. Like ants, the tiny villagers I see scramble as they get larger, stopping behind large structures which can only be anti-aircraft weapons and bazookas—probably acquired from our dead guys.

Suddenly, a projectile whizzes past our helicopter, and Tseng ducks his head in just in time not to catch shrapnel from the exploding helicopter behind us.

"God, _fuck_!" Highwind says painfully as everyone else in the chopper cough and hack as smoke pours in. I sit still and look around me, craning my neck to try and get a better glimpse of the encampment. "Torch the cocksuckers!" he screams to his gunmen, who pull their goggles down and start firing away.

As we come closer to the cliffs, we're met by small arms fire—which, for the most part, Highwind's iron beasts can take, but it poses a danger since there aren't any doors.

The colonel barks maneuvering and formation orders into his head set; like Tseng, I duck just in time as a projectile flies toward me, slamming into the metal in the back.

"_Holy shit!"_ Rude screams uncharacteristically as the dud grenade falls to the floor, still smoking. Yelling, he tries to scramble away from it, but has nowhere to go except outside the chopper. The Icicle soldier is firing bullets at the encampment, his body bouncing up and down—we're not close enough to use any magic yet.

When I sit up straight, I see that both Reno and Rude have gone into a panic attack. Eli, who was dead asleep before the first explosion, leans forward and grabs Reno by the color, shaking him.

"Reno!" He says in his high pitched voice. "Stop screaming!"

"_Stop screaming?_ The fuck do ya mean 'stop screaming?' We almost _died_ here, you silly little fuck!"

"The colonel can't give orders with all this noise in the back! We'll all get killed!"

Tseng finally spoke up. "Both of you. Sit down and be quiet. Stay out of the way. We're in combat."

"I can't fuckin' hear my other boys!" Highwind's voice cuts through, but it isn't enough.

"Fuck!" Rude cries. "I want off this thing!"

"And you wanted to shoot that gun," Tseng says mockingly, annoyed. "Just take a deep breath and sit, Rude."

Surprisingly, Rude does as he's told and takes a few asthmatic breaths and, amongst whines of "I can't take this shit anymore," he lets his shoulders hang while heaving deep pulls. Helicopters behind and around us are starting to use various methods of fire power—several grenades here and there explode on site, but so far I'm not seeing any direct effect.

As our formation flies over the village, I look down at them—they stare back before trying to fire upwards. Nervously, Rude takes his helmet off his head and sits on it.

"There we are," Highwind says with relief. "Okay boys, let 'em rip!"

The gunmen pull their huge weapons up closer to them and with their other arm, reach down to make adjustments to the length and a few clicks. The materia, which I had thought was already equipped, move down further into the slots with a "tschk" sound and the machines whir.

The Icicle boy lifts the butt stock further up onto his shoulder and uses two hands to grab and aim it. He pulls a separate trigger; the materia in the first two slots glow and fire erupts from the metal, dispersing and chasing after anything organic as it touches the ground. Several Wutainese who were running towards our chopper, firing at us, turn and run the opposite way before collapsing. Their ankles and feet are burned completely off.

When Icicle fires again, their bodies disintegrate into one greasy mass, and the foliage around the site burns with it.

Meanwhile, as the helicopters bob up and down to look for a spot to land, I'm bracing myself, trying not to get motion sickness.

The spot the formation lands in is hot with small arms fire and of course—Highwind's favorite thing—incoming. The gunman who sat in the door to the left of me, towards Tseng, is one of the lucky one's shot as he exits the chopper. Flagged in his shoulder, he cries and falls against me; I help drag him behind a dune and call him to a medic.

Highwind departs slowly with a large megaphone, and refuses to take cover behind the dunes, screaming orders to his battalion, who all turn around to listen through incoming. While the rest duck, he still doesn't even flinch, and bullets seem to curve their paths to go around him.

"Start suppressing fire," he yells into the megaphone. "Distract them so the choppers can nuke 'em!"

Behind me, I hear Reno scream, "Fuck this shit! I'm not getting off this thing!" I turn around, watching Eli hesitatingly climbing out after watching the other kid get shot. He ducks as incoming hits.

"Reno, I can't leave you here!"

"You sure as damn well can!"

"What if the chopper gets hit, you idiot?"

"That's a quicker death than getting shot in your guts!"

I pick my sword back up and run towards the two.

"Screw you; I'm leaving!"

Just as he says that I grab Eli by the front of his collar and push him out towards the dunes, where incoming falls randomly, avoiding the soldiers merely by chance.

"I'm ain't going!" Reno screams hoarsely. "I ain't going! I ain't gettin' off this—"

I grab him by the hair and drag him to the dune Eli is laying in the prone, his weapon towards the enemy. A shell lands and explodes several feet away from us and Reno keeps trying to break out into a run, but he seems to have a pretty sensitive scalp. I deposit him next to Eli, hearing him curse me as I run off to find a dune near Highwind, dodging bullets myself.

At the front of the group, soldiers place smoke bombs to provide us a sheet of cover for a couple of seconds—which I thought was stupid since now _we_ couldn't see _them._

"Sir," the same sergeant from last night yells. "I told you this was a bad idea!"

"_What_ is a bad idea, Biggs? Goddamnit, why do you always have to be so damn negative?"

"Sir, we're pinned down!" Sergeant Biggs says, anxious and irritated. "We can't move!"

"Not a fucking problem, Biggs, not at all."

With that, Highwind heads out to god knows where. In front of us, a soldier stands up on his knees from behind a dune at the wrong time and a bullet explodes through the back of his helmet, leaving a spray of pink mist in its wake.

"Fuck!" Biggs says, turning on his back and throwing his helmet off in frustration. I look over at the dunes my boys are in. Eli is in the worst shape with his shuddering face buried into his rifle, but by now the adrenaline had taken effect in the others. Rude is squatting behind his dune, alone, loading a magazine. Reno does the same behind his dune, nervously looking over his shoulder as if the enemy would come to him. He fixes his bayonet to his weapon, which I found interesting—nobody uses those anymore, unless we're practicing drill and ceremony.

Tseng, who is farther up ahead, is already firing, and that curiosity to understand _why_ creeps into me momentarily. But most importantly, I notice that we can't help. There are too many other soldiers in our line of fire.

I look up and see what Biggs means. Right now, we're separated from most of the enemy by a tiny, shallow inlet of water and we can't see what we're shooting at. The Wutainese are using weapons slightly less accurate than ours—I'd heard rumors that they were Shinra's old prototypes, back when they were just a weapons manufacturer, given to these people to test them out and try to get an early alliance. But bullets are still bullets.

Highwind returns, dragging a radioman along with him, who crawls on his feet beside Highwind, trying not to get hit. He yells a call sign into the receiver and I look up to see another formation of helicopters, still firing at the enemy.

Right now, the Wutainese across the water are divided between shooting at us or shooting at the helicopters. Highwind says to the chopper he had just addressed, "Light the bitches on fire! I say again, the coordinates are X-FM-five-five-zero-zero-one-six-nine, Y-FN-three…"

"Tseng," Reno calls, and Tseng slides back from his dune and turns around. "Look!"

He points off to the side just as the choppers descend and the guns spout fire. The chopper carrying our boat drops it into the water westward, and it lands with a heavy splash, leaving me to wonder if it'll still be operational when we get to it.

The enemy begins to scatter, but not before nearly the entire horizon is up in flames and we hear them wail; the whole scene reminds me of the day before.

"Whoo-ee!" Highwind cheers, dropping the receiver on the radioman's helmet. "Ain't that just _gorgeous_? Captain, look!"

He bounds back to my dune and I dare to lift my head and behold another one of Highwind's masterpieces—enemy fire slowly dies as the fortification that was once across the water disintegrates in the blaze. Smoke and dirt rolls over us and as it passes over our heads and we cough in waves.

Except for the colonel of course.

Proudly, he inhales the dusty air and exhales.

"Captain," he begins with a serious tone. "I hope you live long enough to experience the glory of something like this."

I only look at him sideways, my thoughts turning to the man in the dossier.

"Yes, sir," I say in affirmative.

--

The mop-up began shortly after the boat dropped—enemy fire is still not completely suppressed, and we still have to dodge bullets from structure to structure to get to our boat. Protocol states that I should stay here and help until enemy fire is completely suppressed, but Highwind is eager to get me out of his FO, and I'm just as eager to leave and look at my dossier.

The boys finally got up from their dunes and overran the remains of the fort, some of them with bayonets fixed, like Reno. Reno ran along with them at first, but Tseng managed to find him and pull him out of the way.

Highwind's boys shoot at anything that moved. I want to say that this is a good thing, since bad reflexes gets you killed in this job, but it disturbed me to notice that they thought of it as more than just a job. The Wutainese use swords and blades for hand to hand combat, and the way the colonel and his men charge them seems to mock their cry for honor. I watched as one soldier laughed as a Wutainese engaged him in a sword-fight with his fixed bayonet; he seemed to play along before shooting him in his face.

When they clear buildings, they chase the inhabitants out in lines before shooting them all to death. Naturally, a lot of them were women and children, and I whirled about looking for Tseng.

Is it natural for me to think that seeing all of this might make him explode one day?

Once I know that all four crew members are accounted for, I try to move them back to the dunes and keep them there—Reno itches to be a part of the fight while Eli is horrified and disgusted, watching as elderly villagers are pummeled to the ground with buttstocks.

"Are they allowed to do that?" He asks in earnest curiousity. Nobody answers.

--

Reno is the only one who leaves with a good feeling about this—Eli is still bothered that he saw someone about his age get his brains blown out in front of him; this was probably one of his first combat situations. Tseng is in a hurry to get back to his boat, where he's in a position of command. Rude just swears and tries to tear Reno away from the new bond he's made with the chopper boys.

As Reno shakes hands and bids farewell to Highwind and the others, Rude grabs his shoulder and says, "Alright, alright, let's go! We've been here long enough."

"Take care'a yourself, sir," Reno says to the colonel as he's being pulled away.

"So long," Highwind says kindly to Reno, then turns to me and yells as I jump down into the boat, "Hey, Cap'n! Watch your ass out there, alright? I don't wanna have no nightmares about you 'cuz'a seein' your dead body in the forest somewhere!"

My back is turned to him, so I pretend that I don't hear him and sit down to pull out the dossier. Had I chose to answer to him, my response would have been something like this:

"It's Sephiroth we're dealing with, sir. Of _course_ you'll find my corpse somewhere."

--

A/N: Sorry for the wait, but I fucking hated this chapter. Seriously. It took all week to spit out; I was writing like how hold people fuck. I don't know much about air cavalry and air strikes so I had to improvise, or else it'd sound stupid. Now that it's over with and the crew is on it's way up, I can get to more fun stuff.


End file.
